Discovery

Content

When the website went live, it contained a completely different image than the one displayed now, there was a vertical list of zeros. Over time the length of this list changed frequently, along with the number of zeros in each entry. This was the first indication that something strange was happening in regards to Year Zero.

Track Listing

Eventually, the listing stopped changing and 16 entries were left. Over the next week or so, three titles were revealed, one at a time: The Beginning of the End, God Given, and Vessel. By this point, fans were already wildly speculating what would happen next.

On February 12, 2007, ETS user ianmatthews posted a track list he found from Soulseek. [1] Soon after, the remaining 13 titles were revealed on yearzero.nin.com. It is not known whether or not this was intentional or if it was simply a reaction to the track listing leak.

Malechite put together Yzminisiteanimation.gif[2] an animation of the image unfolding using the images saved at Symphony of Noise.

Then some distortion was added to the image, appearing next to the track My Violent Heart right before the song leaked, next to the track Me, I'm Not around the time that song was leaked and then the Distortion appeared next to the track In This Twilight shortly before it leaked. Static appeared on Survivalism,

Trailer

In the video the camera quickly glances over a road sign witch reads "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE". A "glitch" later in the video briefly shows the text "/0024", which quickly led fans to discover the page http://yearzero.nin.com/0024. According to the file name, the image on that page was found to be the cover for the Year Zero album.

The album art appeared on the page and eventually a link to a listen link.

Listen

The flash player on yearzero.nin.com.

Less than a day after the original Year Zero promo leak occurred (April 4, 2007), nin.com responded by putting a flash player containing the entire Year Zero album on the top of yearzero.nin.com.

fuzz.flv
When listening to the album in this player, occasionally the image would flicker and become fuzzy for a few seconds before returning to normal. Disorganized decompiled the flash file and found a file called fuzz.flv containing the various flickering images. So far, one image of a silhouetted figure standing has been found. It appears to look similar to the image of Trent on the Beside You In Time DVD cover. It is also present in the Temporary Internet Files Folder but resembles an zoomed in appearance of The Presence from the Year Zero trailer.

Upon further tinkering with the fuzz.flv image, Several other images have been found. Two of which occur on the black bar banner occurring at the beginning and end of the short video file. They both appear to have lettering and/or a phrase written through the middle of the bar. Also a blue clip of the file showcases a darker human like figure, also could be interpreted as 'The Presence'.

Mr. BrightsideDisorganized also found that, upon decompiling the flash file, the words "Mr. Brightside" appear in the track listing. Speculation suggests that this could have possibly been the name of the scrapped bonus track for the Japan release of Year Zero.